And the winner is...

...the private insurance companies. Huh? That's right, after almost a year of debate (over a hundred, really, dating all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt--yes, Theodore), and after almost a year of crafting legislation, the big winner in health care reform may turn out to be your private health insurance company.

How did this happen? Well, in the famous words of Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's source in the Watergate scandal, "Follow the money." Unfortunately, that's usually a good practice in America when trying to get to the bottom of something. In fact, if there's one thing that may have become crystal clear from all of this it's that money runs America. Now that may be a little like saying that the world is round, but it's something that I forget from time to time. And this may be one of those times. Because I'm beginning to wonder if Howard Dean is right. This bill may be nothing more than a gigantic government subsidy to the insurance companies.

Is it? I'm not sure, but consider this: 30 million new customers will be delivered to the insurance companies under this bill. The government will subsidize them to the tune of about $900 billion. There will be no public option or Medicare buy-in and thus no competition. The reforms? No more denial due to pre-existing conditions, no more rescission (dropping clients once they get sick), no more price-gouging, etc. could all get rolled back by an even richer, more powerful insurance industry in the next few years. Oh, and cost controls? Fahgettaboudit!

Last summer I heard rumblings that Max Baucus's Finance Committee bill was actually being written by the insurance industry and was in fact the Industry's Bill. Even though Baucus had been a huge beneficiary of their largesse over the years I tried to stay optimistic. After all, I thought, anything would be better than what we have now. I was optimistic, in fact, all the way up until last week and Joe Lieberman's notorious bait-and-switch. (Any doubt who he represents?) Now after listening to all the criticism from the Left I'm beginning to wonder. There just might not be 60 senators unbeholden to the insurance industry.

Lawrence O'Donnell said yesterday that Dean was probably speaking for at least a dozen Democratic senators who didn't feel they could speak out publicly against the bill. Dean is worth listening to because he is one of the few truly principled figures in public life today. He's also usually right. I'll never forget that he was one of the only Democrats with the cajones to speak out against the Iraq War in 2002. One of the others was a state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.

It may be time now for him to step up his game.